Tobacco & Alcohol as Commercial Determinants (In-person)

Phillip Gardner, PhD

African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC) Founding Member/Co-Chair

Dr. Gardiner is a Public Health activist, administrator, evaluator, and researcher. He has played a key role in bringing attention to African American health disparities, specifically around smoking-related illnesses as a direct result of the tobacco industry's predatory marketing of menthol cigarettes in the Black Community. Dr. Gardiner retired as the Senior Program Officer for the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), University of California Office of the President, a position he had been in since 1997, and is currently the Co-Chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC), a group of Black professionals dedicated to fighting the scourge of tobacco impacting African American communities both in California and nationally.

Dr. Gardiner received his Doctorate in Behavioral Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley, where he focused on Youth Violence as a public health issue. Throughout his research career, Dr. Gardiner has maintained his community activism to address racial disparities in health, through writing, organizing, evaluating and public speaking. Dr. Gardiner was the national co-chair for the 2nd Conference on Mentholated Cigarettes and was part of the hard work along with other African American activists that led to the U.S. Congress adopting the menthol amendment to the FDA legislation of 2009.

Pamela Ling, MD, MPH

Dr. Pamela Ling is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. Her research focuses on tobacco, media, young adults, marketing of novel tobacco products and innovative clinical and public health interventions. She has contributed to three Surgeon General’s Reports on Tobacco that focus on young people. Dr. Ling has an active clinical practice in General Internal Medicine.